


Somebody's Daughter

by Emolga



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Pre-Game Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 01:33:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emolga/pseuds/Emolga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life after sunset in the Slums of Midgar is cold, even if you aren't homeless and afraid. [Pre-game canon; Barret and Tifa meet for the first time.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somebody's Daughter

It’s past sundown when Barret finds her there, curled up in the shadow of a run-down shack with her knees drawn tightly to her chest and a tattered bag set beside her feet.

He is, in spite of his large frame and the huge canon grafted onto his arm, a man of sentiment; while he’s not one to admit it, the tiny hand that grasps onto his only five fingers is testament enough to the fact. Though reason speaks against his plan, he guides the toddler behind his legs (for safe-keeping, of course) and approaches the girl who’s seeking refuge beside the building, thick eyebrows drawn towards the wrinkled center of his forehead out of concern for a stranger. He can see that she’s shaking before he’s close enough to touch her — an unsurprising development, considering how quickly the heat vanishes from the lower levels of Midgar after the sun stops beating down on the plates above.

“Yo,” he greets in the only gruff way he knows. She freezes solid for a moment as if alarmed to a point of non-function, then cranes her head up to look at him, locks of long brown hair falling aside as her chin tilts towards the skyless night.

She’s a pretty young thing, with dark red eyes and a softly-featured face that would be better-suited to a smile. He’s not about to ask that of her now, though, not while too-large clothing hangs from her undernourished skin and dark bruises weigh down her lower lids in a testament to weeks — possibly months — of exhaustion and malaise. He takes her stunned silence as an opportunity to imagine an older Marlene in her situation, half-starved and most likely homeless without a mother or father to claim her, but he can only get so far as to picture her alone before his heart starts to break.

This is somebody’s daughter. In a perfect world, no one’s daughter would be left shivering after a Midgarian sunset.

“You’re lookin’ a little lost,” he starts to say, and he makes the mistake of taking one more step closer.

Fire lights up behind those glassy eyes of hers. Immediately her teeth set, jaw clenching so tightly that he can see the outline of over-stretched muscle against taut skin, and a single bare fist raises like a serpent poised and willing to strike. She’s small, but her stance — even when sitting — suggests that she knows exactly where to hit him in order to cause some serious damage.

It’s enough to send him scurrying. He nearly knocks Marlene clean off her feet as he staggers back, canon raised almost-comically in a gesture of surrender.

“Hey now,” he mutters nervously as he retreats, his fingers slipping away from the toddler’s in order to protectively cup her head to the back of his leg. He breaks eye contact instantly, as if the girl with a raised fist is comparable to a wild dog searching for cause to attack, and desperately wracks his brain for something he can say that might soothe her. “— I've got a daughter,” he ends up blurting to help prove his innocent intentions, because he knows that her defensiveness is dreadfully appropriate given the types of men who troll the streets after dark.

Miraculously, this seems to appease her. The raised fist unclenches slightly, her hand lowering in tandem, and she gives him a look of innocent curiosity that tugs at his heart strings and makes his throat tighten — because she’s just a baby like his own little daughter, this girl, a sweet young thing in a bad situation, and he’ll be damned to Hell if he’s going to leave her out here all by herself.

His palm spreads against Marlene’s back, and he guides her out from behind the safety of his legs like she’s a peace offering.  
“Go say ‘hi,’ baby,” he urges with a proud smile. Daddy’s little girl will know how to fix it; she always does. “’Member your manners.”

Marlene is a little older than two now, and she’s so much bigger than the tiny bundle he pulled from the wreckage of Corel. She strides up to Tifa with confidence and a smile that could melt any heart, tiny pink sneakers clapping atop hard-packed dirt.  
“Hi,” she says in a bright tone, eagerly reaching out to the unfortunate stranger like she thinks of her as a new toy. The sallow woman seated on the filthy ground below raises her own hands in response, catching the much smaller palms in a loose grip and holding them like they’re the most important things she’s ever touched.  
“Hi,” comes the breathy reply, a soft utterance of wonderment. “What’s your name, sweetie?” Her big, sad eyes are filling up, as if seeing something so good in a place so terrible is causing her a great amount of pain.  
(Barret feels a twinge of victory in hearing the poor thing’s voice, even if it’s not directed at him, but stays respectfully silent.)  
“Marlene,” his little one replies right away — so smart, so kind, such a good baby.  
“Marlene…” Her thin throat bobs as she swallows. “I’m Tifa.”

The young lady shifts then, her weight coming to rest against her knees as she kneels in front of his precious daughter. Her trembling hands release the tiny fists she’d been holding in order to touch the jagged edges of Marlene’s soft brown hair, fingers catching harmlessly within the tangles and uneven splits. She looks up at Barret with a new question in her watering eyes, lips parting like she wants to voice her puzzlement but can’t find the words.

Luckily, he understands. His face splits into a grin, and he hefts up his scarred right arm, proudly showing off the Gatling that’s been grafted on where his hand should be.  
“Hard to cut hair with one hand,” he explains. The laugh he’s coaxed from her abruptly turns into a sob, and she pulls her hands free of the poorly-styled mess, pawing at the tears which have started to spill over onto her pale and dirt-streaked cheeks.

Marlene looks to her father for answers, confused by their new friend’s grief. When no explanation is provided she decides to take action on her own accord, leaning forward to capture Tifa’s arm in a tight and nearly-painful sort of hug that only a toddler could give.  
“You’re sad,” she announces as if it’s groundbreaking news, her small fists running through the young woman’s long, dark hair in a mimicry of her previous gesture. Tifa sniffles and nods, her spare hand coming to rest atop Marlene’s head.  
“I missed rent,” she confesses shame-facedly, still trying to catch the evidence of her sadness before it falls from her lashes. It takes Barret a moment to realize this statement was directed at him and not geared towards his lovely little daughter, and his lips twist into a frown shortly thereafter.  
“That ain’t fair,” he spits in disgust, mortified by the idea that anybody could evict a woman so young and still find sleep at night. Tifa nods in silent agreement, content to revel in his daughter’s presence and soak up the provided comfort like she’s been deprived of it for ages.

Barret waits until the last of her tears have been banished by her palm before he speaks again.  
“You hungry?” He ventures quietly, his tone almost shy. “Me ‘n’ Marlene got enough food for three… Might go to waste without an extra person.” He looks to her expectantly then, eyes wide and hopeful; Marlene mirrors the expression, non-comprehending but feeding off her father’s vibes all the same.

He notices that the whites of Tifa’s eyes have gone red, and her face is puffy from crying. She bites her lip anxiously in contemplation and glances at the worn bag parked beside her knobby knees, then heaves a tremulous sigh, her still-shaking hand lifting from Marlene’s head and easing back her own overgrown bangs to hide them behind the shell of her ear. Go home with a gun-toting stranger, or don’t have a home at all; he knows the choice is hard on her, and it makes him hurt inside, but it’s a small comfort to know that she’ll be safe with him and his little girl if she chooses to accept. He’ll make sure that she won’t spend another night unsure and alone, at the very least.

“… I’m a little hungry,” Tifa admits at long last without looking at him. He smiles warmly, extending his only hand, and her still-damp fingers close around his after only a moment of hesitating.

Strong grip. He was right: She’s a fighter.

“Let’s get some food in you, then,” he concludes in a tone of finality, pulling her to her feet while Marlene springs away. Tifa grabs onto her bag on the way up, settling the strap over her shoulder and pulling it flush against her side so its weight can settle against her ribs. He doesn’t blame her for being possessive, though the old satchel has surely seen better days; she probably has everything she owns in there, and it’s far too small to hold anyone’s entire livelihood.

Marlene lunges for Tifa’s newly-freed hand before she can protest, and Tifa looks down at her feet in response, flushing in a way that has nothing to do with her recent sobbing. Barret realizes she must feel a little silly for wanting to hold hands with a massive stranger and his tiny toddler after she broke down right in front of them, but he won’t hold it against her — she’s still a fledgling by his standards, a teen like far too many others who live in the Slums because they have nowhere else to go. (At least, he’s hoping she’s as benign as she looks; her eyes are so sad that he can’t picture her as anything but.)

“We’ll make hot dogs tonight,” Barret muses as they start to walk, the silver canon swinging by his side. Marlene offers an excited shout of agreement, and he sees Tifa smile — just a bit — through the curtain of her hair.

She’s still shaking, though. He makes a mental note to buy her a coat along with some outfits that actually fit; then they’ll get her a haircut and put some meat on her bones with a few nice home-cooked meals. Once she gets her shine back — and he knows she’ll shine because she seems the type — they can work on finding her a job. Tifa, he’s sure, will be back on her feet in no time.

 _Whoever your daddy is_ , he thinks to himself as her slight fingers squeeze firmly against his own, _I hope he knows that I’m gonna take good care of you_.

**Author's Note:**

> I've always loved the relationship between Barret and Tifa. It kind of irritates me that even with all the supplemental canon we've been given, they never showed us how the two of them met (at least, not to my knowledge,) so I made something up!
> 
> They always struck me as having a sort of stepdaughter-and-her-cool-stepdad relationship, for some reason. I tried to portray the beginning of that inherent protectiveness in this fic, since Barret is a bona fide Papa Bear.
> 
> PS: Dude, what the Hell is Zangan’s problem? I’m sure he left Tifa with enough Gil to get by for a while, but who leaves a half-dead 15-year-old girl in the Slums of the most corrupt city in the world just because they don’t want to “settle down?” Man, I just don’t get him.
> 
> Anyway, I hope this fic was to your liking!


End file.
